US-Iran peace talks near with Hormuz, Lebanon top of agenda

The U.S. and Iran prepared for direct talks in Pakistan with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively shut and Israel and Hezbollah exchanging fire, complicating efforts to turn a fragile truce into lasting peace.

The two-week ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump and Tehran was broadly holding across the Middle East on Friday. The exception was in Lebanon, where questions remain over whether Israel’s parallel campaign against Tehran-backed Hezbollah is part of the agreement.

Israel continued to strike towns in southern Lebanon, albeit on a smaller scale than the major operation that killed more than 200 people on Wednesday. Hezbollah said it launched drones and rocket salvos toward Israel, where medics reported treating several injured people in central and southern Israel.

A ceasefire in Lebanon is one measure that “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X. The other is the “release of Iran’s blocked assets,” he said, without being more specific.

U.S. and Iranian delegations are set to meet in Islamabad on Saturday, with shipping through Hormuz — which handled about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas before the war — also a central sticking point.

Trump told the New York Post on Friday that U.S. warships are being reloaded with “the best ammunition” to launch fresh attacks if the talks faltered.

“We’re going to find out in about 24 hours,” Trump said, when asked if he believed negotiations would be successful.

Earlier Friday, Vice President JD Vance, who is leading the U.S. delegation, told reporters as he left for Pakistan that Trump had given “clear guidelines” for the talks and urged Iran to take the negotiations seriously.

“If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive,” he said.

An Iranian delegation is expected to arrive in Islamabad on Friday night, officials in Pakistan’s capital said. Ghalibaf and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will lead the delegation, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.

The Middle East war has killed thousands of people and damaged energy infrastructure across the oil-rich Persian Gulf in the past six weeks, while Iran’s ongoing shuttering of Hormuz has choked global fuel supplies.

Trump on Thursday accused Iran of “doing a very poor job” of allowing oil to move through the strait and also warned against charging fees on tankers.

Traffic through the strategic waterway has shown little sign of a meaningful pickup since the truce began, as shipowners await clarification of its status. A Russian-flagged supertanker passed through the strait late Thursday, ship-tracking data show, but this was a rare example.

The ongoing blockage has maintained pressure on oil prices, which traded steady at about $96 a barrel on Friday. U.S. stocks fluctuated after a seven-day rally as investors await news from the peace talks.

Despite the challenges, Trump has said he’s “optimistic” about a deal with Iran. The U.S. president described Iran’s leaders as “much more reasonable” than their public comments would suggest in a phone interview with NBC News.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father was killed on the first day of the war, said in a statement on Telegram that Iran “will definitely bring the management of the Strait of Hormuz to a new stage,” though it was unclear whether he was referring to previous Iranian demands to retain control of the waterway that the U.S. has rejected.

Khamenei reiterated that Iran wants war reparations — a likely nonstarter for U.S. negotiators.

Trump told NBC that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “going to low-key it” with airstrikes on Lebanon, after the two leaders spoke by phone on Wednesday.

Even so, Lebanon remains a major flashpoint. Iran has said the U.S. bears responsibility for halting fighting in the country, which has killed more than 1,700 people, while American officials insist the country wasn’t part of the ceasefire accord.

Netanyahu said he would open direct talks with Lebanon to discuss disarming Hezbollah and ending the conflict, and the U.S. agreed to host a meeting next week, according to a State Department official.

But the Israeli leader also reiterated his position that the ongoing attacks in Lebanon aren’t part of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal.

Hezbollah’s “resistance will continue until its last breath,” Secretary-General Naim Qasem said, according to Al-Manar TV.

The Lebanese government pledged to disarm the militant group after a 2024 ceasefire, but hasn’t succeeded — with the powerful militia refusing.

The Lebanese group — founded in 1982 as a reaction to Israel’s occupation of the country’s south — evolved into Iran’s most powerful proxy, helping it deter enemies and expand its influence across the Middle East.

The U.S. and Iran appeared to pause most strikes after fighting continued in the region on Wednesday. The Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry said fresh strikes were carried out by Iran and its proxies overnight on Thursday, with no further reports on Friday.

Saudi Arabia, where a key oil pipeline was attacked a day earlier, has lost more than half-a-million barrels a day of oil output capacity because of Iranian strikes, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

Strikes on a pumping station serving the vital East-West Pipeline this week crimped daily throughput by 700,000 barrels, the agency said.

The war in the Middle East has claimed more than 5,500 lives, according to governments and non-governmental agencies. More than 3,600 people have been killed in Iran, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates, while more than 1,700 people have died in Lebanon, the government says.

Israel said it’s killed more than 1,400 Hezbollah militants, including 200 on Wednesday.

Israel has reported about three dozen deaths, and a similar number have been killed across Gulf Arab nations, government reports show. There have also been several dozen casualties in Iraq. Thirteen American troops have been killed, according to U.S. Central Command.

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—With assistance from Eltaf Najafizada, Skylar Woodhouse, Eric Martin and Magan Crane.